Are they swarming?

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Joined
Apr 17, 2014
Messages
401
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59
Location
Warwick
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
15
I have a hive with two brood boxes on.
I checked the bees this morning and the top box was really good, a couple of frames of stores and the rest mostly capped brood or lavae, with some eggs.

Bottom box largely empty drawn frames with about three frames of eggs lavae and capped brood.
There were a few play cups but no queen cells.

This afternoon, the sun has come out and the rain has stopped and the bees are massing outside.

I have just put a queen excluder under, as I am worried that this is the prelude to a swarm.

Am I doing the right thing there?
and
Should I do an artificial swarm this afternoon.
I have a spare brood box and roof.

Thanks for your advice.
 
Any charged queen cells? Have they got enough space?
 
I have just put a queen excluder under, as I am worried that this is the prelude to a swarm.

Am I doing the right thing there?

No, definitely not - putting a QX under is never the answer to anything.

Why do an artificial swarm if there are no QC's ?

It looks to me like orientation flights - happens almost daily at hives - even the older bees have a quick check around in the morning before scouting out.Most of the hives here are going frantic this afternoon as well, due to being more or less confined the last few days
 
Every day when it's not raining my hives have a cloud of bees outside at around 1-2 pm. They are orienting. If you watch yours you will probably see them circling.
 
Thanks.
I have taken the QE off the bottom, and have put one of the frames of brood in the bottom brood box and replaced it with foundation, just to make sure that they have lots of room.
One of the cups looked like it had an egg in it so I took that down.

I also scored one of the frames which was about half capped stores, I'm hoping that they move the stores up into the super and give themselves some more room.

And it's still not raining !!!
May even make it through the day in the dry..
 
Reverse the boxes if the bottom box is empty, with it being on top the queen will move up and lay it out. I would not artificial swarm until queen cells are found, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
 

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